I love Vancouver. Every time I am here I love it more.
Don't get me wrong, I love Seattle, too, but Vancouver has something to it that Seattle just doesn't. I'm sure part of it is where Scott and I are, anchored an easy dinghy ride from the Yaletown neighborhood. Yaletown is young, clean, and urban. The people, the buildings, and the parks are all beautiful. And Yaletown is probably the only place I've been in a couple of years that is pulling off what no other place seems to be capable of right now--prosperity. New condo high-rises have giant "SOLD OUT" banners across their billboards. Even with high-rises on every block, the building ordinances must allow the sun to reach the sidewalk. Most buildings are tiered back from the street and get narrower as they get higher. The mix of 3-4 story buildings mixed with 20+ story buildings is nice. Or one part of the building is only a few stories high (often on the street corners), then toward the center it climbs much higher. Either way, the effect is a dense, yet airy mixed-use city core. Actually, with Yaletown so vibrant and beautiful, it is no wonder the Olympic Village (across the water) is having a hard time filling up!
Transit here is efficient and easy to use, even for first-timers. No doubt a little familiarity with place names would make it easier for visitors, but it is like that in any metropolitan city. And it seems highly used by the locals.
The central library is spacious, and even non-citizens need only go to the service desk for a card for one year of public library Wifi. And, even though I can't check it out, they have a reference book here (two copies even!) that I really wanted to take a look at in Seattle. However, it was missing from the Seattle library's shelf. It wasn't checked out, and even after a thorough search by the librarian through all the possible hiding places, it was never found. I had hours of bliss yesterday afternoon getting so many answers from the book that had eluded me for many months. Before I left, I ordered myself a copy online. It was a somewhat expensive book, and I really wanted to take a look at it before buying it.
Canadian social service programs mean that I've only seen two homeless people so far in a stretch of time and distance that would have revealed at least a hundred in Seattle.
If I didn't love my life on the boat, and love Seattle so much, I could easily live here. As it is, I'll take in all I can in these brief visits.
:)
Mandy
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Back and forth
Most of the delays in posting have been due to travel lately... not on the high seas, but more mundane excursions by car and bus and rail, with not a little walking thrown in for spice. Once we got back to the boat, there was, of course, work to be done... and that's what we've been doing, up through today, and now I feel like I can take a little breather and get back on course. Until next week, of course.
We're in Vancouver, still or again, depending on how you look at it, anchored out in False Creek. Mandy is back from a trip to Wisconsin to visit family, and I am back from Washington from a separate trip for similar reasons. I went backpacking in the North Cascades (after a short delay due to a brushfire burning across I-90; though frustrating, at least it came with an air show in the form of a helicopter making water drops from a nearby stream), which is a whole different sort of wilderness than the one we have been experiencing up here. A lot more work required, too! The mountains may be best viewed from a great distance.
The spot we ended up in in the Creek isn't as advantageous as the one in which I spent the few days after sending Mandy south. It's not as convenient to shopping, nor Internet, nor a dinghy dock. It's still quite lovely, but options are limited; in the last hurrah before fall, boats abound and False Creek is crowded. We had a couple days in relative seclusion, though the best spots were full up. Now we're a little wedged in by other boats. But we'll be here for a while, at least another week, so perhaps it will clear out again after the weekend. On the other hand, next weekend is Labor Day... so maybe not.
This weekend, we have some friends coming up for a visit, which should be fun even though the weather is taking a turn for the worse. We've been bound to the bus and train while exploring up here so this will be an opportunity to get further off the beaten path and see some things we might not otherwise.
Not that the transit system up here is shoddy in any way. We figured out yesterday how to get out to go shopping in a place much cheaper than the downtown core, and even with a couple of transfers in between, it only took a couple hours. With buses every 15 minutes and trains every 5 on the main lines, you're never waiting around for very long. It very much points to how limited the options (and the thinking) are in the Seattle area, where your best bet is usually to take a car and sit in traffic. There certainly is traffic here, but it seems to be less a problem, and with such flexible transit you're not really forced into driving as much.
Despite the weather, it's still pretty nice here, and I am looking forward to a little more exploring and a little less scrambling around next week. At the end of the week, though, we're southbound by land once again, Mandy for business and me for a convention (not business). While it's all for fun, all the bouncing around is starting to get to me a little bit and I'll be glad when it is all done, September has come, and we are solidly back aboard once again. Leaving the boat is a little nerve-wracking, as is coming back and getting adjusted to it once again after any length of time on dry land. There are rewards, of course: moonrise and moonset on the day we got back:
Although we have also had the occasional uninvited guest, who has left unwanted gifts in the dinghy as it floats along off our stern.
At any rate, September may bring cooler weather, but it will also have fewer crowds, less pressing travel demands, the possibility of televised football, and the promise of a return to familiar circumstances and what seems, despite our best efforts, to most resemble real life.
We're in Vancouver, still or again, depending on how you look at it, anchored out in False Creek. Mandy is back from a trip to Wisconsin to visit family, and I am back from Washington from a separate trip for similar reasons. I went backpacking in the North Cascades (after a short delay due to a brushfire burning across I-90; though frustrating, at least it came with an air show in the form of a helicopter making water drops from a nearby stream), which is a whole different sort of wilderness than the one we have been experiencing up here. A lot more work required, too! The mountains may be best viewed from a great distance.The spot we ended up in in the Creek isn't as advantageous as the one in which I spent the few days after sending Mandy south. It's not as convenient to shopping, nor Internet, nor a dinghy dock. It's still quite lovely, but options are limited; in the last hurrah before fall, boats abound and False Creek is crowded. We had a couple days in relative seclusion, though the best spots were full up. Now we're a little wedged in by other boats. But we'll be here for a while, at least another week, so perhaps it will clear out again after the weekend. On the other hand, next weekend is Labor Day... so maybe not.
This weekend, we have some friends coming up for a visit, which should be fun even though the weather is taking a turn for the worse. We've been bound to the bus and train while exploring up here so this will be an opportunity to get further off the beaten path and see some things we might not otherwise.
Not that the transit system up here is shoddy in any way. We figured out yesterday how to get out to go shopping in a place much cheaper than the downtown core, and even with a couple of transfers in between, it only took a couple hours. With buses every 15 minutes and trains every 5 on the main lines, you're never waiting around for very long. It very much points to how limited the options (and the thinking) are in the Seattle area, where your best bet is usually to take a car and sit in traffic. There certainly is traffic here, but it seems to be less a problem, and with such flexible transit you're not really forced into driving as much.
Despite the weather, it's still pretty nice here, and I am looking forward to a little more exploring and a little less scrambling around next week. At the end of the week, though, we're southbound by land once again, Mandy for business and me for a convention (not business). While it's all for fun, all the bouncing around is starting to get to me a little bit and I'll be glad when it is all done, September has come, and we are solidly back aboard once again. Leaving the boat is a little nerve-wracking, as is coming back and getting adjusted to it once again after any length of time on dry land. There are rewards, of course: moonrise and moonset on the day we got back:
Although we have also had the occasional uninvited guest, who has left unwanted gifts in the dinghy as it floats along off our stern.
At any rate, September may bring cooler weather, but it will also have fewer crowds, less pressing travel demands, the possibility of televised football, and the promise of a return to familiar circumstances and what seems, despite our best efforts, to most resemble real life.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Police Psychology
A basic grasp of this subject has proven invaluable to me of late, as odd as it may seem while spending so much time out on a boat, away from law enforcement in almost every aspect.
Last week, it came into play during our stay at a yacht club which shall remain nameless. A security deposit was required for the gate key, a common requirement at any marina. I didn't have enough cash, the person at the desk when we checked in didn't believe that her stand-in the next day would be capable of figuring out how to reverse a deposit authorized on a credit card, and at any rate we were leaving much earlier in the morning than anyone staffed the desk. She accepted my driver's license and told me I could turn in the key and collect the card from the night watchman before we headed out.
She didn't have a number or radio channel on which we could get hold of him, nor did he normally stay at the desk. This combination of information, while apparently vague, in actuality told me everything: having been a night watchman myself, I knew I would have to get up early the next day to give myself time to poke around all the buildings to find whatever secluded corner he was using to sleep in on the job.
In case he was smart and to give him an honorable way out, I first banged loudly on the front door of the main building, but there was no response. A more crafty man would be dozing nearby the entrance most likely to attract attention, hoping to be woken by the noise of anyone knocking or entering, but this wasn't the case. Fortunately, it was a terribly hot night, and two doors were left open on the main patio on the other side of the building, so I was able to walk in and wake him up from the couch on which he was napping in the bar. License retrieved, we left on time.
Our next stop was False Creek, where the subject of police psychology came up once again. Here in Vancouver, there are certain anchoring restrictions supposedly in effect in the False Creek area that allow anchorage only outside the navigable channel, and only for two weeks in every four during the summer. To enforce these, a self-registration system is set up, where you fill out your paperwork and post a permit on your boat if you are staying overnight.
I knew that considerable effort had been made prior to the Olympics to clear out the vast numbers of abandoned and resident derelicts, but as we motored in the other day, this seemed to have been abandoned or neglected in the intervening months. The anchorage was still very crowded, and many of the boats there didn't display permits, and looked either abandoned or as if they couldn't possibly have moved in the past two weeks. So, I wasn't all fired up about the necessity of getting a permit myself, for only two nights there. I figured if there was any enforcement effort, it would more likely be occupied with the more obvious transgressors and probably took some time to get rolling judging by how long some of them looked to have been in place.
I did go ashore that first day and stopped by the permit station, and if there had been a pen or something there, I would probably have just filled the thing out and dropped it in the box, but there wasn't so I just picked up the paperwork and took it back to the boat with me. I decided, at least partly out of curiosity, to hold off and see what happened.
I was relying, in this, on another principle of police psychology, which is the desire to avoid unnecessary paperwork. Even if there was a regular patrol, and even if they did note our presence, the most powerful instinct even when noting the absence of a posted permit, would be to let it go for a couple days... who wants to fill out tickets or file reports on problems that are going to go away by themselves? Additionally, most officers genuinely want to deal with real problems and not busywork; with limited hours in the day and clear choices between a boat that was obviously just passing through and others which equally obviously were not, most of them would probably give us a pass for a few days and deal with the longer-term problems. I was anchored near several of these, and figured the difference would be obvious.
Anyway, I dinghied ashore the next day and headed up the seawall path only to see a police Zodiac heading down the waterway past me. I was too far around a curve to see my boat, but I was curious how closely it might get looked at, so I stopped to watch. Sure enough, the Zod bent in off his course and swung into the anchorage. I couldn't see exactly what he was up to, though he pulled in and out a couple times (possibly just idling in circles as he was writing?) and had plenty of time to tag several of us in there. I didn't see anyone with permits properly displayed. Here, however, another aspect of cop psychology would be working against me: once you get the ticket book out and you're stopping to cite one offender, you may as well do 'em all. The stats look good.
This is one of the reasons the paperwork rule is not infallible; there are motivations involved beyond the obvious, in the form of superiors and other bureaucratic incentives. And there is always the danger that you'll get one of those twisted individuals who thrives on paperwork, and can happily spend all day dotting i's and crossing t's and will enforce the letter of the law to the last detail. You can't reason with, fudge, or sway these guys, they will just putter right along detailing every transgression and acting as the law dictates without logic or reason. They're like a big legal assembly line.
Although that may in fact seem like the fairest approach, in fact it's dangerous because most laws now are so complex and the mechanisms for implementation are so ill-defined that enforcement is effectively arbitrary. The law is whatever the police and prosecutors (although the two may not always agree) says it is, and applies to whoever they decide to apply it against. Too many laws and too few natural applications for them make for a sort of fascism, which inevitably is enforced mostly against an underclass that has no effective means of protest.
All the same, in reasonable hands, this isn't entirely unproductive. Though they may hate the paperwork, pursuant to filling it out most cops have an excellent opportunity to interact directly with the people being investigated, letting their very real and astute police instincts sort out the legitimate problems from the minor violations. This isn't infallible; I have a friend, an entirely stand-up guy who is utterly innocent of all significant wrong-doing, who manages to set off those cop instincts with every interaction he has with law enforcement and consistently gets the fifth degree. On the whole, though, most cops can sort out most citizens between those who have made a mistake or are confused, and those are truly up to no good. In this respect it's not a lot different from how things have always worked with law enforcement.
But if you also have some understanding of how exactly that process works, it's much easier to have conversations with officers that result in nothing happening, even if you haven't done everything technically legally. You simply have to reassure them that, in the main, you are all right, didn't mean it, and probably won't do it again.
How to do this depends on the officer and the circumstances, and I would say there aren't probably any hard and fast rules except to avoid challenging their authority. You may know it's bullshit, but there's no faster way to make things bad than to call them on it.
When I got back to the boat there was no notice of any sort on it, but I did notice that two others nearby that had not previously displayed permits, now had them up in the windows. My theory is that they were still aboard and got a talking to, and then complied with the registration. I filled out all my paperwork and put up the registration too, taking another basic principle of cop psychology as a guide: blend in, and they won't bother you. When no one else around had a permit up, it was okay that I didn't. Now that several of them did, I wanted one as well. Being the grey man, the one that looks just like everyone else, is a good way to avoid attracting attention in the first place.
That's not always possible. An example would be our late arrival to clear Customs in Port Townsend last year. We were faced with a very irritable Customs officer who had been called in after hours, and some serious fines for our transgression, not to mention the possibility we simply wouldn't be allowed back in to the country.
Late as we were, we had to wait even longer for the officer to show up, which on top of a very long day already was difficult to bear. Mandy was fuming so I swore her to silence; women, if they can't cry productively and on-demand, aren't always an asset to these interactions, having a certain sense of entitlement that rises from frequently getting the benefit of the doubt from authority figures at every stage of their upbringing. Anger and entitlement aren't useful attitudes in this respect. I didn't let her cook dinner, either, though her temper is even fouler when she is hungry... I didn't want to look too comfortable and settled in. It's good if you can look a little abject and miserable yourself; the idea that you've already paid, in some sense, for having done something wrong, can factor in your favor (this doesn't always work; I got a ticket after totaling my truck in college, for excessive speed, even though I had been within the limit, nothing else was damaged, my truck was clearly trashed, and I was lucky to be walking away; the trooper was just being a dick, and I got the ticket thrown out in court later. Still, he wasted my time and introduced undue anxiety I could have done without right then).
When the CBP officer showed up, I was tremendously apologetic in the manner of someone who has just dinged a stranger's car in a parking lot... gosh, sorry, I just didn't see it, thought I was clear, super sorry about that, I'll take care of whatever the insurance needs, sort of thing. We had had some engine difficulties, which made us later (though we probably were never have going to been exactly on time, and hadn't called ahead, or enough ahead, to schedule clearance for that reason), and I introduced an element of frustration with the engine, ensuring my dirty and bloodied hands were on display without calling attention to them. The patched hoses in the engine compartment were what sealed the deal; they were real, but after seeing them, the officer didn't investigate any further, and indeed didn't check our ID, ask any other questions, or do anything else except complain about the paperwork and staffing problems that apparently consume his post.
In my apologies I was careful to commiserate with this sort of problem in general, showing I understood that cops have lives too, and though we were late getting home already and badly wanting to tie up at a mooring and get some food and sleep, we sat around and chatted for quite a while about the miseries of working for the border patrol with him. He actually was a pretty decent guy and I did genuinely feel bad about his own situation; my anger was at the terrible system that put us both there and the inability of either of us to do anything constructive about it.
This sort of ingratiation shouldn't be carried too far, of course; it starts to be obvious and serves as a bit of a warning flag. And cops aren't stupid; they will usually know what you are up to no matter how subtle you think you are. But in some respects that doesn't matter. If you're able to make the effort and not over-do it, they are still getting a sense of who you are and whether or not you are worth the effort of further action.
Anyway; it's tiresome to have to deal with authority figures on this basis, but apparently, like any other sort of seamanship skill, it's necessary for navigating the complex waters of international cruising today.
Last week, it came into play during our stay at a yacht club which shall remain nameless. A security deposit was required for the gate key, a common requirement at any marina. I didn't have enough cash, the person at the desk when we checked in didn't believe that her stand-in the next day would be capable of figuring out how to reverse a deposit authorized on a credit card, and at any rate we were leaving much earlier in the morning than anyone staffed the desk. She accepted my driver's license and told me I could turn in the key and collect the card from the night watchman before we headed out.
She didn't have a number or radio channel on which we could get hold of him, nor did he normally stay at the desk. This combination of information, while apparently vague, in actuality told me everything: having been a night watchman myself, I knew I would have to get up early the next day to give myself time to poke around all the buildings to find whatever secluded corner he was using to sleep in on the job.
In case he was smart and to give him an honorable way out, I first banged loudly on the front door of the main building, but there was no response. A more crafty man would be dozing nearby the entrance most likely to attract attention, hoping to be woken by the noise of anyone knocking or entering, but this wasn't the case. Fortunately, it was a terribly hot night, and two doors were left open on the main patio on the other side of the building, so I was able to walk in and wake him up from the couch on which he was napping in the bar. License retrieved, we left on time.
Our next stop was False Creek, where the subject of police psychology came up once again. Here in Vancouver, there are certain anchoring restrictions supposedly in effect in the False Creek area that allow anchorage only outside the navigable channel, and only for two weeks in every four during the summer. To enforce these, a self-registration system is set up, where you fill out your paperwork and post a permit on your boat if you are staying overnight.
I knew that considerable effort had been made prior to the Olympics to clear out the vast numbers of abandoned and resident derelicts, but as we motored in the other day, this seemed to have been abandoned or neglected in the intervening months. The anchorage was still very crowded, and many of the boats there didn't display permits, and looked either abandoned or as if they couldn't possibly have moved in the past two weeks. So, I wasn't all fired up about the necessity of getting a permit myself, for only two nights there. I figured if there was any enforcement effort, it would more likely be occupied with the more obvious transgressors and probably took some time to get rolling judging by how long some of them looked to have been in place.
I did go ashore that first day and stopped by the permit station, and if there had been a pen or something there, I would probably have just filled the thing out and dropped it in the box, but there wasn't so I just picked up the paperwork and took it back to the boat with me. I decided, at least partly out of curiosity, to hold off and see what happened.
I was relying, in this, on another principle of police psychology, which is the desire to avoid unnecessary paperwork. Even if there was a regular patrol, and even if they did note our presence, the most powerful instinct even when noting the absence of a posted permit, would be to let it go for a couple days... who wants to fill out tickets or file reports on problems that are going to go away by themselves? Additionally, most officers genuinely want to deal with real problems and not busywork; with limited hours in the day and clear choices between a boat that was obviously just passing through and others which equally obviously were not, most of them would probably give us a pass for a few days and deal with the longer-term problems. I was anchored near several of these, and figured the difference would be obvious.
Anyway, I dinghied ashore the next day and headed up the seawall path only to see a police Zodiac heading down the waterway past me. I was too far around a curve to see my boat, but I was curious how closely it might get looked at, so I stopped to watch. Sure enough, the Zod bent in off his course and swung into the anchorage. I couldn't see exactly what he was up to, though he pulled in and out a couple times (possibly just idling in circles as he was writing?) and had plenty of time to tag several of us in there. I didn't see anyone with permits properly displayed. Here, however, another aspect of cop psychology would be working against me: once you get the ticket book out and you're stopping to cite one offender, you may as well do 'em all. The stats look good.
This is one of the reasons the paperwork rule is not infallible; there are motivations involved beyond the obvious, in the form of superiors and other bureaucratic incentives. And there is always the danger that you'll get one of those twisted individuals who thrives on paperwork, and can happily spend all day dotting i's and crossing t's and will enforce the letter of the law to the last detail. You can't reason with, fudge, or sway these guys, they will just putter right along detailing every transgression and acting as the law dictates without logic or reason. They're like a big legal assembly line.
Although that may in fact seem like the fairest approach, in fact it's dangerous because most laws now are so complex and the mechanisms for implementation are so ill-defined that enforcement is effectively arbitrary. The law is whatever the police and prosecutors (although the two may not always agree) says it is, and applies to whoever they decide to apply it against. Too many laws and too few natural applications for them make for a sort of fascism, which inevitably is enforced mostly against an underclass that has no effective means of protest.
All the same, in reasonable hands, this isn't entirely unproductive. Though they may hate the paperwork, pursuant to filling it out most cops have an excellent opportunity to interact directly with the people being investigated, letting their very real and astute police instincts sort out the legitimate problems from the minor violations. This isn't infallible; I have a friend, an entirely stand-up guy who is utterly innocent of all significant wrong-doing, who manages to set off those cop instincts with every interaction he has with law enforcement and consistently gets the fifth degree. On the whole, though, most cops can sort out most citizens between those who have made a mistake or are confused, and those are truly up to no good. In this respect it's not a lot different from how things have always worked with law enforcement.
But if you also have some understanding of how exactly that process works, it's much easier to have conversations with officers that result in nothing happening, even if you haven't done everything technically legally. You simply have to reassure them that, in the main, you are all right, didn't mean it, and probably won't do it again.
How to do this depends on the officer and the circumstances, and I would say there aren't probably any hard and fast rules except to avoid challenging their authority. You may know it's bullshit, but there's no faster way to make things bad than to call them on it.
When I got back to the boat there was no notice of any sort on it, but I did notice that two others nearby that had not previously displayed permits, now had them up in the windows. My theory is that they were still aboard and got a talking to, and then complied with the registration. I filled out all my paperwork and put up the registration too, taking another basic principle of cop psychology as a guide: blend in, and they won't bother you. When no one else around had a permit up, it was okay that I didn't. Now that several of them did, I wanted one as well. Being the grey man, the one that looks just like everyone else, is a good way to avoid attracting attention in the first place.
That's not always possible. An example would be our late arrival to clear Customs in Port Townsend last year. We were faced with a very irritable Customs officer who had been called in after hours, and some serious fines for our transgression, not to mention the possibility we simply wouldn't be allowed back in to the country.
Late as we were, we had to wait even longer for the officer to show up, which on top of a very long day already was difficult to bear. Mandy was fuming so I swore her to silence; women, if they can't cry productively and on-demand, aren't always an asset to these interactions, having a certain sense of entitlement that rises from frequently getting the benefit of the doubt from authority figures at every stage of their upbringing. Anger and entitlement aren't useful attitudes in this respect. I didn't let her cook dinner, either, though her temper is even fouler when she is hungry... I didn't want to look too comfortable and settled in. It's good if you can look a little abject and miserable yourself; the idea that you've already paid, in some sense, for having done something wrong, can factor in your favor (this doesn't always work; I got a ticket after totaling my truck in college, for excessive speed, even though I had been within the limit, nothing else was damaged, my truck was clearly trashed, and I was lucky to be walking away; the trooper was just being a dick, and I got the ticket thrown out in court later. Still, he wasted my time and introduced undue anxiety I could have done without right then).
When the CBP officer showed up, I was tremendously apologetic in the manner of someone who has just dinged a stranger's car in a parking lot... gosh, sorry, I just didn't see it, thought I was clear, super sorry about that, I'll take care of whatever the insurance needs, sort of thing. We had had some engine difficulties, which made us later (though we probably were never have going to been exactly on time, and hadn't called ahead, or enough ahead, to schedule clearance for that reason), and I introduced an element of frustration with the engine, ensuring my dirty and bloodied hands were on display without calling attention to them. The patched hoses in the engine compartment were what sealed the deal; they were real, but after seeing them, the officer didn't investigate any further, and indeed didn't check our ID, ask any other questions, or do anything else except complain about the paperwork and staffing problems that apparently consume his post.
In my apologies I was careful to commiserate with this sort of problem in general, showing I understood that cops have lives too, and though we were late getting home already and badly wanting to tie up at a mooring and get some food and sleep, we sat around and chatted for quite a while about the miseries of working for the border patrol with him. He actually was a pretty decent guy and I did genuinely feel bad about his own situation; my anger was at the terrible system that put us both there and the inability of either of us to do anything constructive about it.
This sort of ingratiation shouldn't be carried too far, of course; it starts to be obvious and serves as a bit of a warning flag. And cops aren't stupid; they will usually know what you are up to no matter how subtle you think you are. But in some respects that doesn't matter. If you're able to make the effort and not over-do it, they are still getting a sense of who you are and whether or not you are worth the effort of further action.
Anyway; it's tiresome to have to deal with authority figures on this basis, but apparently, like any other sort of seamanship skill, it's necessary for navigating the complex waters of international cruising today.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Eeriness
This morning Scott dropped me off at the last sailboat accessible dock nearest the Amtrak station that sits near the head of False Creek in Vancouver. It was only around 8:00 am, and my bus to Seattle didn't leave until 11:30. I was armed with a map of Vancouver that Starbucks had been handing out during the Olympics. Along with street names and such, it also handily shows EVERY Starbucks near every Olympic venue as well as downtown.
I followed False Creek to its head, past the Olympic Village, which had been off limits to non-athletes during the events. This was my first chance to see it. A very nice trail had been constructed (or updated) along the waterfront, and walkers with and without dogs, joggers, bikers, roller-bladers, and moms pushing strollers all made heavy use of this lovely public green space.
To my right, it was easy to see where temporary staging areas must have been within the Village during the Games, since large swaths of land are now just empty lots alongside very nice looking brand new condos. In the center of one lot was a giant inukshuk, the symbol of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
After picking up my bus ticket, I consulted my map for the nearest Starbucks, which was only about 2 blocks away. I stepped inside it, but it looked like a commuter Starbucks and had only a few barstools for seating. I was looking for something more substantial to wait out the hours at. The next-nearest Starbucks was back the direction I had come from. So I headed back, but decided pass along the opposite side of the Village and see what was there. There was nothing much: old, nondescript buildings, workshops or former workshops of differing sorts, many of them with faded "for lease" signs out front. I walked along a street busy with cars, but not many pedestrians. The map was true, however, and there, in the bottom of a new condo/office building on the far edge of the Village was the promised Starbucks.
After killing a few hours there catching up on this and that, I walked back to the bus station. This time I decided to walk through the middle of the former Village and see what that was like.
It was weird. Eerie-weird, and not at all what I expected from passing by within blocks of it in each direction. Two blocks toward the water, and the trail was busy with human traffic, two blocks the other direction, the the street was busy with car traffic. In the middle of the former Village there was nothing: no cars, no people, no dogs, no kids. The street and sidewalks were equally empty.
I'd heard that the condos that were built for the Village were not selling well, and many had been converted to rentals, which also were not filling very fast. Most of the condos had the shades drawn, either to make the vacancies less obvious, or to keep down the air conditioning costs on hot days like today. A few occupied units had plants out on balconies, softly announcing, "Someone lives here." The scene was mostly like an empty movie set. Since it's Sunday, people aren't at work and kids aren't at school. But they aren't here either. As I came to a park within the Village I noticed the first sign of life. There was a single family with a child. A little later, as I got to the end of the last street, two adults on bikes rode in and a car left a parking garage. There was a sign for a London Drug, but where it was, I don't know.
It was like a ghost town, except that everything was brand new and perfectly landscaped. The thing is, this place must have been the hub of the palpable energy of nervous, overwhelmed, elated, disappointed, or just relieved athletes and their coaches and families. The streets and sidewalks must have been packed with teams in their matching gear showing their country of origin. I highly doubt cars were even allowed inside, on account of the thousands of people. I can't imagine a place with more emotion than the Olympic Village would have. And now, everyone's gone; they took their liveliness with them, and the new residents have not yet arrived.
If we hadn't made the trip up to Vancouver to experience some of the Olympics, I doubt any of this would have occurred to me. I wouldn't have known the history of where I was, nor would I have experienced the spirit of the host city at its greatest hour. Now, here I was again, and there was nearly nothing that actually claimed that these few city blocks had even been the Village, nor marked its border or touted its past. Not a single set of Olympic rings were anywhere. Some "Vancouver 2010" flags remained, and a street was named "Athlete Ave," but that was about it. Except for the soft rustling of the leaves of newly-planted boulevard trees, there was only eerie silence, and the laughs of one child in a park.
I followed False Creek to its head, past the Olympic Village, which had been off limits to non-athletes during the events. This was my first chance to see it. A very nice trail had been constructed (or updated) along the waterfront, and walkers with and without dogs, joggers, bikers, roller-bladers, and moms pushing strollers all made heavy use of this lovely public green space.
To my right, it was easy to see where temporary staging areas must have been within the Village during the Games, since large swaths of land are now just empty lots alongside very nice looking brand new condos. In the center of one lot was a giant inukshuk, the symbol of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
After picking up my bus ticket, I consulted my map for the nearest Starbucks, which was only about 2 blocks away. I stepped inside it, but it looked like a commuter Starbucks and had only a few barstools for seating. I was looking for something more substantial to wait out the hours at. The next-nearest Starbucks was back the direction I had come from. So I headed back, but decided pass along the opposite side of the Village and see what was there. There was nothing much: old, nondescript buildings, workshops or former workshops of differing sorts, many of them with faded "for lease" signs out front. I walked along a street busy with cars, but not many pedestrians. The map was true, however, and there, in the bottom of a new condo/office building on the far edge of the Village was the promised Starbucks.
After killing a few hours there catching up on this and that, I walked back to the bus station. This time I decided to walk through the middle of the former Village and see what that was like.
It was weird. Eerie-weird, and not at all what I expected from passing by within blocks of it in each direction. Two blocks toward the water, and the trail was busy with human traffic, two blocks the other direction, the the street was busy with car traffic. In the middle of the former Village there was nothing: no cars, no people, no dogs, no kids. The street and sidewalks were equally empty.
I'd heard that the condos that were built for the Village were not selling well, and many had been converted to rentals, which also were not filling very fast. Most of the condos had the shades drawn, either to make the vacancies less obvious, or to keep down the air conditioning costs on hot days like today. A few occupied units had plants out on balconies, softly announcing, "Someone lives here." The scene was mostly like an empty movie set. Since it's Sunday, people aren't at work and kids aren't at school. But they aren't here either. As I came to a park within the Village I noticed the first sign of life. There was a single family with a child. A little later, as I got to the end of the last street, two adults on bikes rode in and a car left a parking garage. There was a sign for a London Drug, but where it was, I don't know.
It was like a ghost town, except that everything was brand new and perfectly landscaped. The thing is, this place must have been the hub of the palpable energy of nervous, overwhelmed, elated, disappointed, or just relieved athletes and their coaches and families. The streets and sidewalks must have been packed with teams in their matching gear showing their country of origin. I highly doubt cars were even allowed inside, on account of the thousands of people. I can't imagine a place with more emotion than the Olympic Village would have. And now, everyone's gone; they took their liveliness with them, and the new residents have not yet arrived. 
If we hadn't made the trip up to Vancouver to experience some of the Olympics, I doubt any of this would have occurred to me. I wouldn't have known the history of where I was, nor would I have experienced the spirit of the host city at its greatest hour. Now, here I was again, and there was nearly nothing that actually claimed that these few city blocks had even been the Village, nor marked its border or touted its past. Not a single set of Olympic rings were anywhere. Some "Vancouver 2010" flags remained, and a street was named "Athlete Ave," but that was about it. Except for the soft rustling of the leaves of newly-planted boulevard trees, there was only eerie silence, and the laughs of one child in a park.
And so it begins
Well, Mandy is on her way on the long road back to Wisconsin, marking the beginning of two or three or four weeks of complicated travel, moorage, and provisioning arrangements we are making to bounce back and forth between here and the States on various business and personal trips.
I am anchored out here on my own for a bit in False Creek, in Vancouver, enjoying the heat and the sunshine, if not all the other people out enjoying the heat and the sunshine. Despite efforts the city has made to clear out various derelict and "permanent" residents, it's pretty crowded in the outer parts of the Creek (note: not really a creek). In the inner basin, which was blocked off entirely for the Olympics (being adjacent to the Olympic Village) things look a little better, but that's on the other side of a bridge that is too low for us to pass, and out here, it doesn't look like there is a lot of compliance with the 14 day maximum occupancy rule. I could be wrong, some of these tubs that look like they haven't moved in ages may go out every other week, but it sure doesn't look like it.
So, anyway, that's mostly me grousing about getting a somewhat shoddy spot among the few allowable anchorages left in the outer area. Really, it's not so terrible... it is pretty secure here, and while there are a lot of wakes, generally people seem pretty good about keeping below the 10km/hr limit, so it's tolerable.
I don't have a lot going on here and not enough time between now and my own imminent departure to start with much, so I am cleaning and airing out the boat... projects much more easily done with only one person aboard. I went ashore and took a walk over to Granville Island this afternoon and explored Leg-in-Boot Square on the south side of False Creek. There are two grocery stores near there, a good find for us as we have always had trouble provisioning here. There's a neat park nearby also, which I didn't know was there, and Mandy told me that she quite enjoyed her walk to the train station through the former Olympic Village earlier. It seems clear that we have barely scratched the surface of things to see and do here... but although I would love to be able to be in two places at once, we're jumping around so much I fear there will be little time to explore while the boat is in this area.
I am anchored out here on my own for a bit in False Creek, in Vancouver, enjoying the heat and the sunshine, if not all the other people out enjoying the heat and the sunshine. Despite efforts the city has made to clear out various derelict and "permanent" residents, it's pretty crowded in the outer parts of the Creek (note: not really a creek). In the inner basin, which was blocked off entirely for the Olympics (being adjacent to the Olympic Village) things look a little better, but that's on the other side of a bridge that is too low for us to pass, and out here, it doesn't look like there is a lot of compliance with the 14 day maximum occupancy rule. I could be wrong, some of these tubs that look like they haven't moved in ages may go out every other week, but it sure doesn't look like it.
So, anyway, that's mostly me grousing about getting a somewhat shoddy spot among the few allowable anchorages left in the outer area. Really, it's not so terrible... it is pretty secure here, and while there are a lot of wakes, generally people seem pretty good about keeping below the 10km/hr limit, so it's tolerable.
I don't have a lot going on here and not enough time between now and my own imminent departure to start with much, so I am cleaning and airing out the boat... projects much more easily done with only one person aboard. I went ashore and took a walk over to Granville Island this afternoon and explored Leg-in-Boot Square on the south side of False Creek. There are two grocery stores near there, a good find for us as we have always had trouble provisioning here. There's a neat park nearby also, which I didn't know was there, and Mandy told me that she quite enjoyed her walk to the train station through the former Olympic Village earlier. It seems clear that we have barely scratched the surface of things to see and do here... but although I would love to be able to be in two places at once, we're jumping around so much I fear there will be little time to explore while the boat is in this area.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Rollin', rollin', rollin'
That's what we were doing, for the past two days on a park buoy at Plumper Cove in Howe Sound. The BC Marine Parks brochure has the gall to refer to the place as "well-protected" which it's not, although it is in a channel that does not, at least, seem subject to the otherwise brisk inflow/outflow winds created by the steep terrain around the Sound. It's wide open to the Strait of Georgia, though, so when those big northwesterly swells start coming in, you get all 100+ miles worth of fetch on them. Well, that's not true, either... there is a relatively shallow bar near the entrance, which absorbs some of the energy... but not enough!
Despite that, it's a lovely little park, and if we were just making a day trip it would be at the top of our list for a return visit. Even one night would be tolerable. Two... well, unfortunately, we paid up front. The rates are excellent, but not something we wanted to forfeit.
Howe Sound is a bit like a big lake, a lot of cabins, a lot of hills. This morning, as we pulled out, they were somewhat obscured by a haze of smoke, drafted in by the nightly outflow from the mountains, I imagine. Yesterday was worse; you could smell it, and swirls of smoke curled through the anchorage as if everyone had started barbecuing at the same time.
We had a splendid sail across from Nanaimo, 15-20 knot winds on the beam, a low one foot chop, clear skies, bright sunshine. We were joined for a bit by a single porpoise, but as we were only making five or six knots, I don't think we were fast enough for him to play with and he soon lost interest. If only he had shown up earlier; a very short stretch of the way, out from behind Protection Island through the Fairway Channel, we had to sail on a close reach in an area that funneled the wind even faster. This put us on our side, at speeds up to seven knots, pounding into the chop. Usually, if I am on watch in such stuff, I put on at least my fouly bottoms, because it's a pain to do when you are underway and by the time you realize you need them, it's too late, but I was sitting up on the weather rail in shorts and a t-shirt while Mandy had the helm. Spray was coming over the bow, but not badly, until... we caught a particularly large wave at a particularly bad angle. I saw the wall of water coming over the bow at me as if it were in slow motion. Then... SPLOOSH! I was soaked from the waist up. A few seconds later, with a soft hiss, the part of the wave that had landed on the foredeck came rushing back along the side deck and spilled over into the cockpit, getting everything below the waist that had escaped the first drenching.
I looked back to see how Mandy had fared... and she was bone dry. I had been directly between her and the wave and formed a perfect human shield.
I went below and changed and put my fouly jacket on. Of course, that was the last wave we took over the bow. I bet the porpoise would have found the incident amusing, though.
We're in an outside slip at the West Vancouver Yacht Club right now, in Fisherman's Cove north of Point Atkinson. There is not much in this neighborhood, being rather on the outskirts of town, but it makes up for few commercial services with a considerable amount of local color. Three or four marinas, including the yacht club, are crammed into the Cove. On a chart it looks positively claustrophobic, particularly with very shallow waters. In person, it's not that tight, but it's busy, and cooperation and courtesy are key to getting around safely. Fortunately, everyone seems to have those qualities, and a large dollop of patience for outsiders who don't know where they are going and have to hunt around for the right dock. Like Seattle's houseboat community, life here seems to be lived largely on the water. In addition to the boats, there are houses lining the shore and the small Eagle Island that dominates the mouth of the cove. We just saw a dinghy parade go by, mostly comprised of small, flat barges with outboards, decorated variously as floats in a regular parade might be. Not long after that, some poor guy in a sailboat lost power right out in the channel; a passing Boston Whaler took him in tow almost immediately. The yacht club is hosting a wedding reception this evening, which also promises to be entertaining. There is plenty to see here, then, if not a lot to do.
There are commercial services a couple miles away, but the neighborhood is at the base of some steep-to terrain that doesn't appeal to me at the moment. There are handy bus routes, but I have spent our last cold, hard Canadian cash on the gate key deposit, so it looks like a quiet night in for now.
Tomorrow we will get going pretty early so I can deliver Mandy to False Creek and she can make her way to the Amtrak station in time for her train to Seattle. After that, I am likely anchored on my own in False Creek for a few days. There, at least, city services are right near by. And cash machines... I'll need some more of that.
Despite that, it's a lovely little park, and if we were just making a day trip it would be at the top of our list for a return visit. Even one night would be tolerable. Two... well, unfortunately, we paid up front. The rates are excellent, but not something we wanted to forfeit.
Howe Sound is a bit like a big lake, a lot of cabins, a lot of hills. This morning, as we pulled out, they were somewhat obscured by a haze of smoke, drafted in by the nightly outflow from the mountains, I imagine. Yesterday was worse; you could smell it, and swirls of smoke curled through the anchorage as if everyone had started barbecuing at the same time.
We had a splendid sail across from Nanaimo, 15-20 knot winds on the beam, a low one foot chop, clear skies, bright sunshine. We were joined for a bit by a single porpoise, but as we were only making five or six knots, I don't think we were fast enough for him to play with and he soon lost interest. If only he had shown up earlier; a very short stretch of the way, out from behind Protection Island through the Fairway Channel, we had to sail on a close reach in an area that funneled the wind even faster. This put us on our side, at speeds up to seven knots, pounding into the chop. Usually, if I am on watch in such stuff, I put on at least my fouly bottoms, because it's a pain to do when you are underway and by the time you realize you need them, it's too late, but I was sitting up on the weather rail in shorts and a t-shirt while Mandy had the helm. Spray was coming over the bow, but not badly, until... we caught a particularly large wave at a particularly bad angle. I saw the wall of water coming over the bow at me as if it were in slow motion. Then... SPLOOSH! I was soaked from the waist up. A few seconds later, with a soft hiss, the part of the wave that had landed on the foredeck came rushing back along the side deck and spilled over into the cockpit, getting everything below the waist that had escaped the first drenching.
I looked back to see how Mandy had fared... and she was bone dry. I had been directly between her and the wave and formed a perfect human shield.
I went below and changed and put my fouly jacket on. Of course, that was the last wave we took over the bow. I bet the porpoise would have found the incident amusing, though.
We're in an outside slip at the West Vancouver Yacht Club right now, in Fisherman's Cove north of Point Atkinson. There is not much in this neighborhood, being rather on the outskirts of town, but it makes up for few commercial services with a considerable amount of local color. Three or four marinas, including the yacht club, are crammed into the Cove. On a chart it looks positively claustrophobic, particularly with very shallow waters. In person, it's not that tight, but it's busy, and cooperation and courtesy are key to getting around safely. Fortunately, everyone seems to have those qualities, and a large dollop of patience for outsiders who don't know where they are going and have to hunt around for the right dock. Like Seattle's houseboat community, life here seems to be lived largely on the water. In addition to the boats, there are houses lining the shore and the small Eagle Island that dominates the mouth of the cove. We just saw a dinghy parade go by, mostly comprised of small, flat barges with outboards, decorated variously as floats in a regular parade might be. Not long after that, some poor guy in a sailboat lost power right out in the channel; a passing Boston Whaler took him in tow almost immediately. The yacht club is hosting a wedding reception this evening, which also promises to be entertaining. There is plenty to see here, then, if not a lot to do.
There are commercial services a couple miles away, but the neighborhood is at the base of some steep-to terrain that doesn't appeal to me at the moment. There are handy bus routes, but I have spent our last cold, hard Canadian cash on the gate key deposit, so it looks like a quiet night in for now.
Tomorrow we will get going pretty early so I can deliver Mandy to False Creek and she can make her way to the Amtrak station in time for her train to Seattle. After that, I am likely anchored on my own in False Creek for a few days. There, at least, city services are right near by. And cash machines... I'll need some more of that.
Meteors
(Image: Plumper Cove looking toward the Strait of Georgia)The park attendant who came to collect our Plumper Cove Marine Park buoy fee two days ago asked if we'd heard about the meteor shower. We hadn't. He said it peaked the night before, but that night should provide a show as well.
We don't usually stay up until dark, thought it has gotten easier in the past couple of weeks as the days shorten.
That night as I crawled into the v-berth to bed, I opened the hatch wide above my head. This we don't usually do, on account of a dew-sodden bed in the morning in an already constantly damp boat. But this was special.
Slowly the light of day faded, revealing the stars that had been there all the time, hidden by the sunlight they now showed the reflection of. Since we were pretty close to Vancouver, I wasn't expecting very vivid stars, but I was hoping a few meteors would pass by our little opening to the sky.
Plumper Cove isn't really much of a "cove." At low tide, maybe, but at high tide it is a bay, protected only from the weather and swells of the Strait of Georgia by a couple of small islands. The wind had calmed completely, and with no tension on the line connecting us to the buoy, every tiny swell or wake rolled us side to side and we thump, thump, thumped against the buoy. With every roll the halyards inside the mast clanked from side to side, reverberating noisily into the cabin. Every time the boat calmed again, another motorized dinghy would pass close by, and we'd start over again.
Proximity to the city also brings other kinds of boater, not cruisers, but also pleasure boaters out for a few-day holiday. As the sky darkened and the rest of the world quieted, the party within another boat in the bay became more apparent. It was the first time I'd heard music come from another boat in quite a long time. As the minutes passed, and the sky darkened, they slowly became quieter and quieter as well. A heron screeched its ghastly call from a nearby dock.
Still we waited. The wakes stopped and the swells died and even the halyards quieted. Scott rolled over to go to sleep, and of course, shortly after he did, a huge, bright meteor streaked directly overhead, burning itself out just before passing from view. A few more small streaks followed.
When a flock of geese began honking I noticed that the party boat had become silent at some point, and that our boat too was silent. Another sizable meteor passed, seeming to leave its trail for longer than the first one. But perhaps it just showed more in the darker night. Then more small ones, and finally one last bright streak before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
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